China E-commerce business registration
Hotline: 86-755-82147392, Email:info@citilinkia.com
ATAHK reads from China Daily on April 11, 2016 that the new tax on imported goods purchased from e-commerce sites will not affect Chinesetravelers who buy abroad, the Ministry of Finance said on Saturday.
Shoppers had expressed concern that a new tax on foreign products, which went into effecton Friday, would spell trouble for outbound tourists. However, the ministry said the fearsstemmed from confusion.
"The new policy targets e-commerce, not individual outbound tourists," People's Daily quotedan unidentified ministry official as saying.
According to the authority, the rules for tourists returning from abroad remain unchanged, withpurchases up to the value of 5,000 yuan ($770) exempt from duties. The new tax relates onlyto e-commerce platforms that allow consumers to order imported goods online to be deliveredthrough postal services.
The policy is aimed at creating a "level playing field" for cross-border e-commerce sites andbrick-and-mortar stores that sell imported goods. It means overseas retail goods boughtonline are no longer treated as personal postal articles but as imported goods.
Cross-border e-commerce has boomed with the surge in demand for higher-quality productsamong China's middle class. For a time, websites have enjoyed an edge over other channels,such as onshore duty-free shops, as they did not need to pay tariffs, import value-added taxor consumption tax.
Now, retail goods sold on e-commerce sites are subject to the three taxes. Tariffs arecurrently all set at zero, with a 30 percent discount on import VAT and consumption tax forpurchases up to 2,000 yuan, and only if a consumer's annual gross transactions are under20,000 yuan.
Operators of bonded areas, part of the e-commerce chain, also expressed concern about thetax change－as it came into effect only about two weeks after it was announced, some areassaid they did not have enough time to clear inventories.
Shoppers also have complained they must now pay higher taxes on low-priced overseasproducts. Previously, these were subject to only a 10 percent parcel tax, but now are subjectto a tax between 11.9 and 32.9 percent.
However, analysts noted that some luxury items, such as cosmetics priced up to 2,000 yuan,now have a lower tax, as the previous parcel tax was 50 percent.
Fitch Ratings said in its latest report that China's restrictions on overseas purchases maynarrow the price differential of luxury goods between China and the rest of the world,potentially boosting domestic consumption.
Contact Us
If you have further queries, don’t hesitate to contact ATAHK anytime, anywhere by simply visiting ATAHK’s website www.3737580.net, or calling Hong Kong hotline at 852-27826888 or China hotline at 86-755-82143512, or emailing to anitayao@citilinkia.com.